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Voronoi fracture into alembic. How to transfer the selection tag?
Posted: 23 February 2017 11:14 PM   [ Ignore ]  
Total Posts:  30
Joined  2016-10-05

Hi,

I need due to performance issues, to cache the whole dynamic simulation of a Voronoi Fracture into alembic file. The problem is the selection tag of the Voronoi can’t be cloned; I think the reason is because it’s generated dynamically frame by frame.

My guess is there should be a way to transfer this data frame by frame with xpresso, any ideas?

Thanks

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Posted: 24 February 2017 12:27 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]  
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Hi JVerdugo,

The question would be, why not use a MoGraph-Cache-Tag for this.
You might have tried this, but it needs to be mention, to go through the options.

The next step to “harvest” all selection, as the Alembic contains only the Inside and outside Faces, would be to copy the Voronoi as it is, keep the Voronoi active and press the c key. This gives all the selections otherwise only generated, but not really available to each “chunk” of Voronoi. After you ex/im-ported the Voronoi via Alembic, the four (one edge, three point) selection tags can be copy and pasted to the Alembic import. Per chunk, so kind of a massive work, if your object has a huge number of these chunks.

It seems to be much faster to keep the Editable version, without any animation and feed the PSR [matrix] from the Alembic to the Fracture. In this way the the Alembic carries only the information, and since it is not generated to be visible, it might give you the performance push you are after.

One idea would be to use XRef, but that should be tested with your specific set up. Perhaps a cached version in an referenced file might help already, without Alembic. This would allow for faster adjustments.

Please explore the attached file, I hope it is not too cryptic:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/zgW2aF5h4X03R9D7maEJw50ep1EQdtF9nrzuHj7JB1P?ref_=cd_ph_share_link_copy
The “Fracture_ex-im” has four copied selections, just to show case that it works.

Let me know if there is something else or if you need a different idea. I’m happy to look into it.

All the best

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Posted: 24 February 2017 11:18 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 2 ]  
Total Posts:  30
Joined  2016-10-05

Hello Dr. Sassi,

thanks for your fast and clear reply.

The reason I need to use alembic file is not only because performance but to apply some xparticles. As far as I know xparticles don’t recognize the voronoi fracture as an animated object, and second I can’t apply any selection tag from the voronoi, xparticles don’t recognize it either.

However with alembic Xparticles works very nicely.

Looking at your file I started to recreate every step you made to understand better the xpresso system, I looked at the fracture object with all the selection tags when I asked to myself, why if I connect all the elementes of the edited voronoi? Will I have a lot of selection tags or will they merge together? And yes, they merge together.

Process:

1- Export the voronoi into alembic (merge generated to get one single file, in order to use it as emitter later)
2- Duplicate the voronoi and connect all the elements + delete, you get one single file with all the selection tags merged
3- Import alembic file
4- click and drag the desire selection tag into the alembic file.
5- Enjoy with particles smile

Thanks again Dr. Sassi, have a good day!

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Posted: 24 February 2017 03:15 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 3 ]  
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Hi JVerdugo,

Nice that you give more information. So the performance is not the main issue. To know from the start what is needed will lead to an more precise result.

The connect and delete should work fine, and a Fracture Object can take this apart again, if needed. It will take the performance down again, hence why I do not suggested it here. More about this, and the limitations we have encountered:
https://www.cineversity.com/forums/viewthread/2278/

The XParticles, well, I have asked the company to give me an educational version, I got one but limited to six month. So, not any longer, and there is no budget to buy all the nice goodies available.
However, if you need Thinking Particles from that set up, you can go directly with MoGraph to produce those. MoGraph produces TP per frame newly, so a test how this would benefit your set up is needed. Since there is nearly no information about your project and no XParticles installation here, it is on you to explore it.

What can be offered is the minimal set up as a file to convert Voronoi to Thinking Particles. Here in the MoGraph based pipeline.

File:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/dPgjweSU7B0tyHjcvHBcqaHmmNM2LiUrwD0I9io6AFT?ref_=cd_ph_share_link_copy

Going the XPresso route, the following could work.

File:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/SPK4r23vyCuafFD28vtW1rCRnHURGrjop4ARa5B5RJG?ref_=cd_ph_share_link_copy

All of that based on the little is known here about your target.

Enjoy your project

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Dr. Sassi V. Sassmannshausen Ph.D.
Cinema 4D Mentor since 2004
Maxon Master Trainer, VES, DCS

Photography For C4D Artists: 200 Free Tutorials.
https://www.youtube.com/user/DrSassiLA/playlists

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